Winter Passed
by OldFashionedGirl95
Summary: In which winter gives way to spring and guilt and sorrow to forgiveness. Part Two of my three-part Susan arc "And Then What Happened?".


******AN: This was what started it all, my very first fanfic. I got the idea months ago, scribbled down a page (very small script) of Susan remembering, much as it appears here, but did nothing more with it for quite some time. I think it was at least two months ago that I got the first version of this, then called, "When Susan Wept," drafted, and showed it to several people. The actual chronology of when the Chronicles were published nagged at me, and I wanted to figure out an explanation that took into account the publication dates. After much discussion with my mother, Calyn, Laura Andrews, and others, and a number of other _Narnia_ stories (for which I have received some lovely feedback, and thank you) I felt ready to tackle Susan again. In my original version, Susan and her (then-unnamed) husband had divorced, and she was about thirty years older, making her the village spinster aunt/grandmother of sorts, but the more I thought about Nat Wright, the more I liked him, and I didn't have the heart to put Susan through any more grief. So Nat became a much nicer person, and he really no longer deserves his name. With WillowDryad's encouragement, I went back and changed my original description of him in "A Weary Way," so you may want to glance through that again.******

******Also, for those who are confused about some of the dates I reference here, I have put up a discussion of my personal Narnia timeline on my profile, complete with approximate birthdays for the Pevensies and how the ages would work. If you take a look at that, I'd love to know what you think of my dating choices. ******

******Many thanks to Laura Andrews, my lovely beta, for proofreading this. Any mistakes remaining are entirely my fault, and I would appreciate being alerted to them. Do enjoy the story of Susan, and keep an eye out for "Wrath Ended, Woes Mended," part three of this arc, which is entirely written and should be forthcoming within a few days. ******

******Disclaimer: Though others officially own all rights on Susan, I believe I am perfectly within my rights, now that she is gone, to tell her story as she told it to my grandmother, and as my grandmother told it to me, that others may know the answer to the ever-asked question, "And Then What Happened?"******

* * *

><p>"<em>Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."<br>__Psalm 30:5_

"_If it be so,  
><em>_It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows  
><em>_That ever I have felt."  
><em>_King Lear, .265-267_

_Of wrath ended  
><em>_And woes mended, of winter passed  
><em>_And guilt forgiven, and good fortune  
><em>_Jove is master; and of jocund revel,  
><em>_Laughter of ladies. The lion-hearted  
><em>_The myriad-minded, men like the gods,  
><em>_Helps and heroes, helms of nations  
><em>_Just and gentle, are Jove's children,  
><em>_Work his wonders.  
><em>_~ C. S. Lewis, "The Planets: Jupiter"_

I never knew either Professor Kirke or Aunt Polly myself, but Aunt Susan told us a great deal of them, and we all wished we could have known them. During the war, the Professor began keeping notes of the magical traffic between this world and the one ruled by the great Lion. After a time, Aunt Polly, being more of a story-teller, took over the task and kept a detailed record in a hand-written (she was from the days when people learned lovely handwriting in school), leather-bound volume, which I saw years later on Aunt Susan's shelf. It had a gilt-engraved title, "The Chronicles and Records of the Friends of Narnia in the Land so Called." (You know all about this land if you have read some books with very similar titles, written by another professor after Aunt Susan died.)

The very first page in Aunt Polly's book was a letter to Aunt Susan, which I read much later. It went like this:

_Dearest Susan,_

_ You no longer believe in the old stories of talking beasts and giants and the Lion, but someday you will remember, and when you do, pull this book out of the dark corner where it is hiding, wipe the dust from the cover, and remember the Golden Days. I've written the stories of your reign first, but also those of your friend Caspian, of his son Tirian, of your cousin Eustace (I know you never liked him, but he really is a different boy since his voyage with Caspian) and his school-mate Jill, and last of all the old story of the Professor and me and the Rings._

_ I know that deep down, you do remember the old days, for does Aslan not say, "Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen"? _

_ Your loving aunt,_

_ Polly_

Aunt Susan was nearly twenty-one when she inherited the book, but when she looked at it, she seemed to hear an echo of the cry she had once prayed desperately never to hear. "The Sovereigns are dead! Long live our Queen!" It was the cry of a people grieving, a people searching for hope, but she had no hope to offer, and she turned away, closing her eyes to the tears, and ordered the book sent to a professor in Oxford—an old friend of Professor Kirke's. She had never met him, but the Professor had sent him the wardrobe years before, when he had been forced to move from the big old house in the country. (When Lucy had heard of the wardobe's fate, she had asked if the other professor was also a Friend of Narnia. Professor Kirke had shaken his head, but added, almost to himself, "He might understand such things, however. He listened to old Ransom, after all.") And (as he had done for Ransom) the Oxford professor wrote books about Narnia that were published and well-liked. And though Susan had given her permission, it made things rather uncomfortable for her, having a name known from a book, and she soon married and moved to America, where she began a different life as Mrs. Wright. But all this I have told before.

Susan lived quietly in America. After two years, she began wearing some dark colors, and every year, on one of the last days of August, she would watch the sunrise with fiercely dry eyes, and then turn away and spend the day in frenetic work, busying herself to drive the memories away. She never spoke of her family. She tried never to think of them. So six anniversaries passed. But then, perhaps a week after the sixth, she paused in her work and thought of the sunrise. She had not visited the land of her birth since her marriage, but as her twenty-seventh birthday approached, she found herself yearning to return, as she had returned once before. Her husband, though perhaps not the sort of man her family would have imagined her marrying, was an understanding man, and he found enough money to send her to England for a month. For years, she had assiduously avoided reminders of her family, but now she went back to the old houses, took the train to her old school, walked miles to see an old country estate she had once loved, and spent a long time in the cemetery attending to nine graves. She still was unwilling to talk of those she had lost, but she no longer fled from thinking of them. She was twenty-seven now, with long black hair that fell to her waist when not sensibly twisted up. Her elder brother would have been twenty-eight, her younger brother would have been nearly twenty-five, and her younger sister would have been twenty-three. She could picture in her mind just how they would have looked at those ages, just how Lucy, who had died at seventeen, would have looked six years later—still laughing, still golden-haired, still preferring to wander in the woods than pay attention to the boys who followed her around. She blinked back the tears and went to visit her aunt and uncle in Cambridge, who were no longer as unpleasant as they once had been, and whom she had not seen in five years. She wandered the streets of London, revisiting her favorite shops, eating in old cafés, and stopping in cathedrals to hear the choirs sing. So she passed a month. She spent her last day in Cambridge in the libraries, and returned to her aunt's house in the evening to find a bulky package waiting for her.

"A man brought this by for you earlier," Aunt Alberta said, and Susan took it. Written on the brown paper was the note, _Thank __you __for __the __loan __of __your __book, __but __I __wish __to __return __it __now. __You __needn't __open __the __parcel, __but __do __keep __it. __You __may __need __it __more __than __I __do__—__if __not __now, __perhaps __someday. _It was signed, _A __Friend._ She took the package back to America, in the very bottom of her trunk, and she left it there when she took the trunk up to the attic. By the time her husband took her to the city for their fifth wedding anniversary, she had entirely put the book out of her mind once more, and the winter passed quietly, just like any of the other winters they had spent together, and if a breath of warmth had stirred her heart that fall, she hadn't noticed.

It was early the following March, when I was eight years old, that my father got a new job in America, and we moved from London to a small town in New York State where there was lots of grass and trees and children. Next to our house was an empty lot, and after that was a little postwar house. Jenny from across the street told me,

"Mr. and Mrs. Wright live in that house. They're quiet, and they don't have any children, but Mrs. Wright likes them, I think. She always has cookies if you visit, and she talks to you exactly as if you were a grown-up."

My brothers, and I went to meet Mrs. Wright the next day, and found this description true. We sat in her front room, eating cookies and drinking lemonade, telling her about our old house and why we had moved. In exchange, she told us a little about the neighborhood, and where the library was, and when the weekly story hour was. We had already met most of the local children, but had not been given this useful information. I liked Mrs. Wright better than almost any of the neighbors we had met, perhaps because her accent sounded like home, and when my brothers headed out to play ball, she invited me to stay and make cookies with her. We were soon good friends, and she told me I could call her "Aunt Susan" if I liked.

I did, and I soon was spending a fair amount of time with her. There were quite a few boys in the neighborhood, several older girls, and some babies, but there seemed to be no little girls my age. Aunt Susan soon took the place of the English aunts I had left behind, and we made cookies together, she taught me how to knit, and I drew pictures for her in school. Ordinary aunt-like things, until one foggy day in April, about a month after we moved, when all the snow was melting and dull green grass was appearing in front of the houses. My mother wouldn't let me go out and play in the rain and mud, and so I was sitting by a window where I could see if it was clearing up, and I was drawing. My brothers (and I, who as the youngest, always begged to be included) loved tales of knights and princes and castles and ladies. Ever since we had moved to our new house, where there was so much space to play, they had been talking about playing knights (it can be difficult to play "a gentle knight a-pricking on the plaine" without a plaine, or at least some open grass, and they had felt the lack back home in London). They were making plans for the first days of May. I didn't want to wait, but they told me all the stories of knights and fair damsels happened in May, and they promised to let me play, too, because they needed a fair damsel to protect. I didn't think that would be half as much fun as being a knight—a knight who wore armor and jousted, rather than a lady who stood by meekly until her fate was decided—but they said I had to be the damsel. So I had made a sleeve for the token of my affection (red with white pearls, just like the one Sir Lancelot wore for the fair Elaine), but now I was drawing what my banner would be if they would only let me have one, tracing my favorite heraldic device from one of their books and coloring it in with my favorite green and red crayons.

It was, as I have said, a very wet day, but it cleared up a bit just before tea-time, and the sun shone enough for my mother to say that I could run over and see Aunt Susan, if I would please be careful not to splash in the puddles. That was better than nothing, and so I took my drawing and went. After she had invited me in and hung up my raincoat and asked me if I shouldn't like a cookie or two with milk, we seated ourselves in the front room, and she said,

"Now, what do you have there?"

"It's my banner, if the boys would let me be a knight." I spread the paper flat on my knees. The design was a rampant red lion, with all the strange curlicues and stylization that heraldic devices have, on a crayoned green field. I was beginning to tell her about the game of knights, but I trailed off when I saw her face. Aunt Susan had gone quite white. She reached out and touched a fingertip to the red lion, then looked away and hastily asked if I wouldn't like another cookie.

She was composed again when she returned from the kitchen. She smiled a little smile and said she liked the picture very much, but then she looked at the raindrops beginning to splash against the window once more, and asked if my mother would be wanting me back home. Thus I left more quickly than I should have liked, and had a rather dull evening, which I won't say any more about. But Aunt Susan later told me exactly how her evening went, and so I will tell you all about that.

After I left (she said), nothing unusual happened until after dinner. Her husband headed off to bed early, but she shook her head and said she'd be awhile. "I need some time to think," she said, pouring herself a nice cup of tea and sitting at the kitchen table where she could look out at the trees behind the house. "Go ahead; I'll be along." So he disappeared upstairs, and she intended to follow in a few minutes, after finishing her tea, but when she looked out the window at the rain hiding the sunset, all sorts of bittersweet memories that she had thought were locked up in a dusty corner of her mind, tried the latch, found it unguarded, and came tumbling noisily out.

When had she last seen that device—that red lion on green? It had been long, long ago, and her mind went back, far back—decades by some clocks, centuries by others. She had been a young girl then, looking back through a magical doorway (you know all about it, as long as you have read those other stories I mentioned) and her last glimpse had been of the red lion banner fluttering over the young king's army. Her mind went back even farther, and she relived every detail of those long-ago days. She remembered when they (she and her sister and brothers), lately English school-children, were suddenly thrust into great adventures, their presence in which seemed to have been orchestrated by the unseen hand of Fate, or Providence, or whatever you will call it. She remembered one dark, dark night when she and her sister had walked hand in hand up the hill, that lonely vigil when they had clung to each other and wept 'til they could weep no more, and then when their weeping was changed suddenly to joy in the early-morning sunrise; when they had been crowned in all pomp and splendor, when the cheering had echoed through the ancient castle and the merpeople had sung for joy, when they had ruled in glory and majesty and fought dragons and befriended giants and there had been peaceful days and golden dreams; when she had been the beautiful black-haired queen, and nobles and princes and kings had begged for her hand in marriage. She remembered the day when they had felt the call of a magic horn—her magic horn—and when they had explored the deserted ruins that had once been their palace, when they had found the ancient, golden chesspiece, when they had wakened the trees and danced all night and fought long battles and restored their friend, the boy-king, to his father's throne. And over all had fluttered the red and green standard of the Lion. But then—then she had been given the awful news that all the adventures—of Kings and Queens, Centaurs and Dryads, Fauns and Mice and Beasts and Men—were coming to a close, and she would never see any of her friends again.

The wonderful Other-world was now barred from her, and she had never been very good in school, but she was good-looking, and well-liked, and such things became her life—"the real world" as she began to think of it. The next holiday, she and her parents went to America, and her younger brother and sister (who'd been staying with their nasty cousin) said that they (_and_ the nasty cousin) had gotten back to the Other-world and had gone on a long sea-voyage with the young king they had met the last time. It was nearly term-time before they all were briefly together again in their own house, and Susan was full of stories of America, and hadn't thought about magic or kings and queens for month and months, but the first thing that happened, when they had congregated in the sitting-room, was that Peter stood up (he was the eldest) and said,

"Well, we're all together again, even if the hols are nearly over. Now," he turned to the two younger children, "you all know that _we_ had a perfectly ordinary holiday, and we want to hear every detail of the voyage with Caspian. How is he? and Trumpkin? and Reepicheep? How is his fleet coming? Did he ever find the seven lords? Was there any trouble at the Lone Islands?" (And Aunt Susan explained to me—much, much later—that Peter, who had, as you know, been High King in that Other-world, had once had to re-establish friendly relations with other nations, including the Lone Islands, and though all had gone smoothly, it can be a ticklish job and he was anxious to hear how Caspian, the new king he had left behind last time, had handled it all.)

And Aunt Susan, hearing her brother saying this, resented it, for _she_ had _not_ had anything like what she would call an "ordinary holiday." She had been in America, and besides, (as she then said, using her annoying elder-sister tone to hide the despair),

"Oh, what's the use, Peter, when you know we'll never get back?" For that was mainly what was bothering her. She had liked Caspian, and all of them, very much, not to mention her many friends from her years as Queen, and to know that she would never again see any of them, but that the younger two had spent months more with their friends, was almost more than she could bear.

And Peter turned to her and answered, "But Lu and Ed can, and that's almost as good. Come on, Lu, how ever did Eustace end up going along?"

But Lu and Ed looked down at the floor until Peter asked what was wrong, and then _she_ burst out crying, and _he_ looked up quickly and said,

"We shan't be going back any more either. I guess we're too old."

And so the wrong end of the tale was told first, and then Susan thought they might like a change of topic, and she might tell of America, but she was mistaken, for now, being barred from_doing_ any more, the others would _talk_ of nothing but the adventures they had shared and the fairy-tales they had lived, and Peter still wanted to hear the story of the sea-voyage (with the quest _and_ the dragon _and_ the whole fairy-taleish nine yards), and the others still wanted to tell it, and Susan felt disagreeable and cross and left out. By the next holidays, Aunt Susan had buried her heartache by convincing herself that it was all a game, only a game, that she was far too grown-up for such childish things, and that she would much rather dress up and go to parties with her popular circle than sit and talk about some fairy-tale Other-world. She was lucky to have already scheduled several dates for the holidays, for the only way to avoid long conversations about quests and kings and queens and such was by being terribly busy with dates and parties and writing lots of letters to the girls she had become close with. The others eventually gave up trying to talk to her as much, especially after Peter asked, at the beginning of the holidays, if she wouldn't come along on a picnic, "for old times' sake. It'll be such fun, Susan. Do come, won't you?"

And she almost could have come, and perhaps even enjoyed it (although no one is ever told what would have happened) if it hadn't been that the others had invited their horrible cousin Eustace, to spend a few weeks with them, and he (and a school-mate of his, who for some reason had come along, too) would be joining them on the picnic. Just the day before, Susan had overheard Eustace say to Edmund, when neither of them realized she was around,

"Whatever's got into Su? You can hardly get her to talk about anything intelligent." Which, coming from Eustace (and you know what he had been like) was really unbearable, and now Susan thought there was simply no way she was going on a picnic with Eustace and his friend and listening to a bunch of new stories about the "old days." Soon one of her school-friends invited her to spend a month of the holidays at their estate, and her life and that of her family began to move increasingly in different orbits. So the years passed, and no more adventures happened to the children. They grew up. Still, several times a year, all but Susan would gather for tea, or a picnic, or a nice evening around the fire, and have a good long "jaw" about their childhoods.

And then came that awful day, that awful train-crash, and Susan and Aunt Polly's book were the only ones who remembered anything of that Other-world. Susan didn't care to. She married and moved across the ocean tried to begin a new life, without thinking of her parents or her brothers or sister or anything that might remind her of them, more than was required. As the years went by, she thought of them less and less, and then hardly ever at all, until that rainy day when I came skipping in with a fair rendition of the Narnian flag.

Then, all the old heartache rolled over her again. Only now it was her family whom she would never see again, and where once she would have given anything to ride once more among the tree-goddesses of Lantern Waste and to hear the mermaids singing and the fauns laughing, now she would give anything for another chance to go on that picnic with Peter and Edmund and Lucy—yes, and even Eustace—and to listen to their stories and to talk of common joys, even if those joys were indeed no more than a child's dream.

And for the first time in years, Susan wept for her family and for what had and had not been.

Suddenly, hardly knowing what she was saying, she cried, "Aslan! Oh, Aslan . . . " and stopped, startled, for she had not thought she believed in the old stories anymore. There was a moment of wonder that she had ever said the old name, and then she felt that curious, inside-out pulling of Magic. The next moment she was looking around, blinking, as you probably would when finding yourself somewhere other than you thought you were. There had been a time in her life when she would not have been so surprised at this happening, but that time was long past, and she was quite taken aback when she found herself in a green wooded spot, quite different from anything she had ever seen in either England or America, and yet somehow familiar. Something in the air tugged at her heart, as if its very beauty would bring tears to her eyes. But I suppose I shall have to describe that place for you, so that you may see it, too.

There were large trees all over, far enough from each other that grass and bright flowers grew beneath them, and among all the trees were flying bright, singing birds (and yet, as she later said, a deep quiet hung over the place, a stillness no birdsong could touch). Susan could see between the trees for quite a way. Behind her was the running water of a rippling brook, and up ahead the ground seemed to drop away in a sharp cliff. Susan did not further investigate the cliff, but turned back to the brook, wondering where she was. Now, perhaps if she had spent much time at all with Eustace's school-mate, Jill, or if she had ever listened to their story, she might have guessed where she was (as I'm sure you have). Later she knew, but at the time, she thought she was dreaming of her childhood, perhaps of somewhere she had once stayed for a holiday when she was very, very small.

She knelt and drank from the brook. When she raised her head, the scene had changed. For there, a little way down the stream, was a lion—_t__he_ Lion, the King of Beasts and Men and the Son of the Emperor-over-the-Sea. And suddenly, she knew where she was.

She dropped her eyes. ("I had tried not to think of Him," she said later, "and convinced myself that He and all He had done were a game we children had made up out of our heads, but very deep down, I think I knew all along that He was real, and I was miserably ashamed of myself.")

"Queen Susan of Narnia, Daughter of Eve," he said in his rich, golden, loving voice, and she burst into tears.

"Come here."

She arose and went, slowly, weeping all the way, and this time her tears were for herself and for her sins. "No," she sobbed, "I am not worthy to be a queen. I have not believed the Truth."

"Once a Queen in Narnia, always a Queen in Narnia. But have you forgotten Me?" And there was hurt in the great voice.

"No, Lord."

"Then why did you no longer believe?"

"Because—because I couldn't bear never to see you or—or Narnia—again, and I was—was banished, and I thought the others were leaving me out, and I told myself we imagined it all." She was kneeling in front of the Great Lion now, still crying. "I—I'm so sorry, Aslan."

There was a silence in the wood. The birds had stopped singing, and that deep stillness lay on everything. Then he bent over her, and she felt a lion's kiss on her bowed head.

"My child. You have answered well. You did not act as I meant you to when I sent you into your own world. I meant for you to remember me, and all you had learned in Narnia, and to seek me in your world."

"Like—like Lucy did—and Peter—and Edmund?" she faltered.

"Yes, child. The others sought me in your world, and like all who seek, wherever they may be, they found me."

"Aslan—" and she stopped, not yet daring to raise her eyes above the great, golden paws.

"What is it, my daughter?"

The lion-kiss had dried her tears. Now she looked up at the majestic face and asked, "Why did they all have to go, Aslan?"

And there were tears in the amber eyes, and he said, gently, "Grief is great, my child. I have wept much for you these years. But did you forget that all must die?"

"No, Aslan, but why all in one day?"

"Their work was finished. But come, and I will show you something of great joy to your heart."

He took her along the brook to the cliff's edge and bade her look up, not down. They were extraordinarily high up, yet when she looked up, she saw mountains—snowless mountains, green and fresh to the very peaks—towering all around them, and afar off, a green meadow partway up a mountain taller than the rest, and bright figures clustered on the grass. And as she gazed on them, she could distinguish her mother and father, and Peter, and Edmund, and Lucy, and Eustace—why, all the Friends of Narnia were there, talking and laughing together, and she began to weep again.

"But it can't be real. They all died, years ago, and left me behind."

"It is real. They were ready, child, and you were not yet."

"Am I ready now, Aslan? Oh, can't I stay here with you?"

"No, my child, not yet. I have work for you in your world, work that only you can do."

"Is that why I was left behind?"

He nodded his great head. "Narnia has passed away, but all that was good there shall be preserved forever in my country."

Susan felt a shiver of delight. "Then this—this is your country?"

"Yes. It is the lowest peak at the edge of my country. You, and the others, were brought to Narnia in times of need, that you might bring my aid and that you might learn to know me. You will now return to your country to tell others of my lovely land of Narnia, that they may also learn to know me. You know some of the tales. You will find others in the Lady Polly's book, and I will breathe on you, and you will know the tale of Tirian, the last king of Narnia, just as he told it. And when you return, you are to write it, also, in the book."

"Yes, Aslan. Will I see you again?"

"Dearest. I will always be with you, for I have called you by name and you are mine. Remember my words. Teach them to others. Do not forget all you learned, and when you see me next, I will take you to my country forever."

"Oh, Aslan," she cried, and buried her cold hands and tear-streaked face in his beautiful, soft mane as she used to. A sort of rich perfume that hung about him flowed over her. Presently she felt stronger and faced him again.

"Now at last you are a Friend of Narnia," he said. "Queen Susan of the Horn, Daughter of Eve, will you carry out my work?"

"Yes, Aslan."

And then—a Lion's kiss on her forehead and a long warm breath that took away the last of her fears and doubts, and she found herself sitting in the gloom of her unlit kitchen, cradling a cup of cold tea, with strange scenes flashing before her eyes. She had wept for her family and for herself. Now she wept for her country, for she was seeing its death—a false Lion, a wicked Ape, destruction, oppression, death, and hopeless battle, until at last even her beloved Narnian stars fell from the sky, the sun was snuffed out, and the door to that world was closed forever. But then she was given a vision of what came next, as all the dear friends met once more and realized where they were, as they romped through a Narnia reborn, under a Sun rekindled, joyous with the memory of stories retold, and the Great Lion welcomed them Home forever.

She blinked and sat very still for a long time. Then she dried her eyes and arose, and the very first thing she did was to tiptoe up the the attic for her Aunt Polly's book. She brought it down to the kitchen and blew off the dust from the engraved lettering, then clutched this precious gift to her. There were no pictures in it. The only images she had were those in the files of her memory—brightly painted mementoes of years in another, brighter, happier world—but she needed none better. She leafed through the book to the first faintly-ruled blank sheet, took up a fountain pen, and carefully wrote out the tale of Tirian, the last King of Narnia, exactly as it had been given her. It filled the empty pages, and the book was finished. Susan laid down her pen, blew on the wet ink to dry it, and sighed. She had taken the first step in carrying out her commision. She pressed her damp handkerchief to her eyes once more; then crumpled it in her hand, sighed, and turned to the beginning of the book. Heedless of the ticking clock or the quiet creaks of the house as it shifted in its sleep, she read and she read, reliving old memories, smiling at old stories, and learning the tales of others for the first time. She said later that she didn't mind telling me that she cried all over again when she read the letter in the front from her Aunt Polly, and when she read of her formerly-terrible cousin Eustace's transformation, and of what Edmund said to him after. "He really did change," she said. "And I'm afraid I didn't have much to say to him that was either intelligent or kind."

The rain continued to come down all night and, at Aunt Susan's, one lamp burned in the kitchen. At last the clouds parted, just as the sun rose, freshly washed and framed in a rainbow, and Aunt Susan laid the book away on a top shelf, unlatched the back door, and went out, barefooted in the wet grass, to greet what already promised to be the first really lovely spring morning. Her sister would have been delighted.

After school, armed with red rubber rain boots against the still-prevailing puddles, I splashed to the library, where I sat on the floor, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around them to hear a story. Aunt Susan smiled at me as she read us a fairytale—the very first fairytale she had ever read for us, and the novelty of that was enough to keep us enthralled. After storytime, I hung around for a few minutes to talk to her, but she was making phone calls (I heard her ordering a new dictionary, telling Mrs. Warner her books were overdue, and I left while she was talking very quietly to someone called Prince Something-or-other). I went home, but made a beeline for her house as soon as I knew she'd be back.

"Do come in, Margaret," she said, smiling again when she saw me at the door. "I was just beginning dinner. Would you care to mash the potatoes?"

I said that I would, and thank you, and I wiped my feet carefully. I was soon wrapped in an apron and perched on a chair, mashing potatoes and telling Aunt Susan about my day at school. She listened as she always did, but I noticed she was smiling and laughing more at the funny parts of my stories than usual. When I had finished the potatoes, she gave me a hand down from the chair and asked, "Do you still have that banner you were showing me?"

"Would you like me to get it?"

"I would, dear." So I ran down the sidewalk to my house, kicked my boots off, tromped up the stairs to get the paper of the day before, and ran back with it in my hand.

Aunt Susan wiped her hands and we sat down with cocoa to look at my drawing. She traced the lion's mane with her finger and bit her lip, but when she looked up at me, her eyes were shining.

"Do you like it, Aunt Susan?"

"I do, dear. I like it very much."

"Why?"

She took the crayoned sheet and smoothed it on the tabletop. "Last evening, when you showed it to me, it made me remember things I haven't thought of in a long time."

"Were they sad things?"

"Yes, but they were also happy things. Do you remember how I promised to tell everyone a story at the park on Saturday?"

I nodded. She had made the invitation after story time, and had promised a story with an evil witch and kings and queens and giants and dragons—and dancing. The children were all sure to be there, for stories are always welcome.

"You musn't tell anyone just now," she said, "but it's really a story of when I was a little girl." She tilted her head, looking at me. "My little sister was named Lucy, and when we were girls, she had golden curls just like yours." She looked thoughtfully into her cocoa for a moment. "Should you like to hear a story about Lucy, when she was just your age?"

I would. She got me another cookie and began.

"You aren't old enough to remember the War, but I was eleven years old then, and we were sent away from London into the country. There were four of us. Peter was the eldest, and then I, and then Edmund, and Lucy . . ."

* * *

><p>I would like to leave my story there, but there is a little more I must tell you. Aunt Susan sent a copy of the story she had been given of Tirian to the Oxford professor from long ago, who was now at Cambridge, and he put it in a book to go with his other books, so that everyone was able to know the important tales of Narnia. The man she had been talking to that afternoon in the library came that week when all the children gathered at the park on Saturday for Mrs. Wright's story of a magical land. The tale was too long to be told in one day, and we all returned the next week, and the next, for what became weekly stories of heroes and quests and giants and serpents and the Great Lion. They were the most popular stories of all among us children, but only I (and I think the man also) knew the secret, that long ago in another world, all these stories had truly happened to Aunt Susan, her family, and her friends. The man spent a lot of time talking to Aunt Susan in the following weeks, and eventually I heard his story also, which I have not the time to tell here. I will say that some time later he married and settled down in our town, and I used to call him "Uncle—" but I must not say any more on that matter just now.<p>

Aunt Susan remained a great friend to me, and whenever I was having trouble, whether at school or with my family, I could always go to her for a cookie, a cup of tea, and a sympathetic ear. She would listen to all my griefs, but she never told me what I should do. She would look thoughtfully into her cup of tea, and then say, "Do you remember the time when . . .?" And we would discuss God and the Great Lion and one of her stories, and I would come away ready to face my issues and do the right thing. She was there for all my growing-up years and then, years after I had moved to America and whispered with Jenny-from-across-the-street about "Mrs. Wright," she became very sick. Her faithful, quiet husband had died a year or two before, and I went to see her every day. I was with her the last day. She was sleeping a lot then, but a little after one o'clock in the afternoon she roused, and smiled weakly at me. She told me to give Aunt Polly's book to the man who had come to hear her every week, and whom I had once called "Uncle". "He will take good care of it," she said. Then she seemed to sleep again. A long time later, her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled faintly, squeezing my hand just a little. I had to bend close to hear her whisper, "The river. . . . Oh, _Aslan!__"_ and for a moment her eyes shone radiantly. Then they closed.

And I remembered what the Lion had told Lucy at the World's End, that the way from our world to His lies across a river. And I knew that my dear Aunt Susan had found the way across the great Bridge.

"_When all mankind has ceased to fight  
><em>_I'll bow my head in thanks each night.  
><em>_For this rich earth and all it means  
><em>_For golden days, and for peaceful dreams."  
><em>_~ Peter, Paul, and Mary, "If I Were Free"_

_~ finis pars secundus ~_


End file.
